The orange and almond loaf was a nice treat as well. It’s moist and the zing of the oranges is a good compliment to the rush of caffeine from the coffee. Bitter, sour and sweet; plus the creamy frothy milk equals the best breakfast I have had in Australia so far.

I took my old college friend Anjo, now based in Perth to Ned’s when we met up and sampled their meals. Everything on the display looks good only to be disappointed after tasting the risotto and quiche. Even if we asked them to reheat these, the quiche was cold inside.

The risotto was a little rubbery and not all the rice was cooked so you get bits every now and then of rice grains with hard centers.

So if you find yourself in Ned’s, grab a cup of coffee and maybe a sweet pastry to go with it. I loved this Afogatto.

The day before our flight back to Melbourne, I tagged along with Christine to Fremantle. It’s a small town off Perth. If the population in Perth made its money through mining, Fremantle—or Freo to the locals—is believed to be the domain of the old rich, whose forays are inscribed in the town’s symbols from sailing and yachting to really good beer.


It’s unfortunate that I was only able to spend an afternoon in Fremantle, otherwise there would have been more food to write about. It’s the perfect place to be idle and lazy. So much colonial architecture can be found in the very center of town, that you can get lost roaming about and never really bother crossing the same path twice the first time you’re around. Aside from old edifices, there’s a bevy of interesting al fresco places lining the streets, quaint little shops that sell everything from books to snuggies—those fleece blankets with sleeves Christine and I thought could only be bought through Australia’s insidious home shopping networks that were everywhere on TV.


First food stop was the Fremantle Market filled with bountiful treats. I grabbed a fairly huge donut...


...and a Spinach and Feta Gozleme from a friendly Turkish immigrant who says that his are the best in town only to candidly admit eventually that he’s probably the only one who sells them in town. Gozleme, as I would figure out eventually, is traditional hand-made Turkish pastry cooked on a hot griddle.


A couple of hours later, we were downing our first pints of beer at the Little Creatures brewery, overlooking the ocean. Christine and I tried the Bright Ale, and I was hooked. It had a fruity taste to it that reminded me of the beer in Brew Brothers found along the rotunda of Tomas Morato before it closed. That was my favorite beer ever, but this fruity and mildly sweet beer from Little Creatures is comparably good. And addicting.


Before getting completely drunk, Christine suggested we try the local food for dinner and found ourselves next door where there were two fish and chips joints. There were hardly any customers in the first restaurant so we decided to go to Cicerello’s whose claim to serving Western Australia’s best fish and chips was validated by a huge crowd. It was so packed that we had to eat outside in the freezing cold. Unfortunately, the fish and chips was just okay.


So we capped our mediocre dinner by going back to Little Creatures. By then the place was teeming with people that we had to sit in the extension which was far more quiet but featured a set of memorabilia, most of which turned out to be actual merchandise for sale.


This is where I bought my first customary souvenir tourist shirt.


And Christine got to take home this picture of her drunk.

What is beguiling about Annalakshmi is not the food, but the concept. The food is good—don’t get me wrong. It features a staple selection of Indian classics from basmati rice to vegetable curry that all taste well, albeit a little more sedate than usual.

Annalakshmi operates like a soup kitchen, where anyone can come in, grab a fairly large platter, and fill it up with the stuff you can find in their buffet tables. The price of the meal is relative not to what you get, but to what you can afford or what you think the quality they are worthy of. Much of that possibly owes itself to the fact that many of the employees are volunteers, and that the restaurant is run much like a charity for the Indian community in Perth.

People end up paying anywhere between A$10 and 20, roughly P400-800, pretty decent considering it’s hard to find a A$15 meal in Australia. Some patrons are more generous, and end up paying 30 to 50 per person, the average amount they would probably pay in a mid-level restaurant.